A web portal may use various web-based graphical user interface (GUI) designs to present aggregated portal content to web portal users. These GUI designs may include web pages with content arranged and presented to the web portal users on the web page as text, tables, dialogs, animations, audio, and the like. Application software, or an application, is computer software designed to run within an operating system and to perform specific tasks/functionality for a user. Web portals, however, do not currently have an ability to permit the use of web-based applications within a web-based operating system framework. As a result, the provision of additional enhanced services and content to the web portal users, such as GUI manipulations, collaborations, functionality streamlining/reusability, and web-application mashups, are either restricted or limited in scope and functionality by existing web technology.